Page 611 - war-and-peace

Chapter XII

Iogel’s were the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. So said
the mothers as they watched their young people executing
their newly learned steps, and so said the youths and maid-
ens themselves as they danced till they were ready to drop,
and so said the grown-up young men and women who came
to these balls with an air of condescension and found them
most enjoyable. That year two marriages had come of these
balls. The two pretty young Princesses Gorchakov met suit-
ors there and were married and so further increased the
fame of these dances. What distinguished them from others
was the absence of host or hostess and the presence of the
good-natured Iogel, flying about like a feather and bowing
according to the rules of his art, as he collected the tick-
ets from all his visitors. There was the fact that only those
came who wished to dance and amuse themselves as girls of
thirteen and fourteen do who are wearing long dresses for
the first time. With scarcely any exceptions they all were,
or seemed to be, prettyso rapturous were their smiles and
so sparkling their eyes. Sometimes the best of the pupils, of
whom Natasha, who was exceptionally graceful, was first,
even danced the pas de chale, but at this last ball only the
ecossaise, the anglaise, and the mazurka, which was just
coming into fashion, were danced. Iogel had taken a ball-
room in Bezukhov’s house, and the ball, as everyone said,

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